The Bonny Birdy is Child ballad 82 (Roud 3972).
A knight is riding when a bird asks him why he is about so late and tells him his wife is with her lover. It had been a wild bird until the lover caught it and gave it to his love. She did not feed it well, so it is telling her story. It flew with the knight to her bower, and sang of how the lover should be away. The lady asks what reason there is for him to leave, and the bird sings that a man in bed with another man's wife should always leave quickly. The knight enters the bower and kills the lover.
The ballad was written only once, in 1783 (or shortly before), from Anna Brown, by her nephew, Robert Eden Scott, [1] and in the same year was sent by her father, prof. Thomas Gordon, to William Tytler with other 14 recorded songs (so-called Tytler-Brown MS ). [2] [3] At least one author points out that the song "is not represented in England" and considers it as a "Scottish version" of the well-known English ballad "Little Musgrave". [4]
"The Bonnie Earl o' Moray" is a popular Scottish ballad, which may date from as early as the 17th century.
"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.
"Allison Gross" is a traditional ballad, catalogued as Child Ballad #35. It tells the story of "the ugliest witch in the north country" who tries to persuade a man to become her lover and then punishes him by a transformation.
Billy Blind is an English and Lowland Scottish household spirit, much like a brownie. He appears only in ballads, where he frequently advises the characters. It is possible that the character of Billy Blind is a folk memory of the god Woden or Odin from Germanic mythology, in his "more playful aspect" and is speculated to have been the same character as Blind Harie, the "blind man of the game" in Scotland.
The Famous Flower of Serving-Men or The Lady turned Serving-Man is a traditional English language folk song and murder ballad. Child considered it as closely related to the ballad "The Lament of the Border Widow" or "The Border Widow's Lament".
"Unusually, it is possible to give a precise date and authorship to this ballad. It was written by the prolific balladeer, Laurence Price, and published in July 1656, under the title of The famous Flower of Serving-Men. Or, The Lady turn'd Serving-Man. It lasted in the mouths of ordinary people for three hundred years: what a tribute to the work of any writer, leave alone the obscure Laurence Price. Oral tradition, however, has made changes. The original has twenty-eight verses and a fairy-tale ending: “And then for fear of further strife, / he took Sweet William to be his Wife: / The like before was never seen, / A Serving-man to be a Queen”. - Roy Palmer, A Book of British Ballads
"Hind Horn" is a traditional English and Scottish folk ballad.
"The Fair Flower of Northumberland" is a folk ballad.
The Bent Sae Brown is Child ballad 71.
"The Bonny Hind" is Child ballad number 50.
Old Robin of Portingale is a Child ballad only found in the Percy Folio.
Lady Alice is Child ballad 85. It may be a fragment of a longer ballad that has not been preserved.
"Gil Brenton" is Child ballad 5, Roud 22, existing in several variants.
Brown Robin is the 97th Child ballad from the collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. The ballad tells the story of a king's daughter who brings her lover, Brown Robin, into the castle and back out without being discovered by the king. The second variant comes from the ballad "Love Robbie."
Erlinton is #8 of the Child Ballads, the collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century. The collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in ten volumes and later reissued in a five volume edition.
Bonny Bee Hom is Child ballad 92.
"Babylon" or "The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" is Child ballad 14, Roud 27.
Mr. Motherwell gives a version under the title of Babylon; or, the Bonny Banks o' Fordie; and Mr. Kinloch gives another under the title of The Duke of Perth's Three Daughters. Previous editors have attempted to find a local habitation for this tradition, and have associated it with the family of Drummond, of Perth. As a legend exactly similar is current in Denmark. this appears a bootless quest.
Sweet William's Ghost is an English Ballad and folk song which exists in many lyrical variations and musical arrangements. Early known printings of the song include Allan Ramsay's The Tea-Table Miscellany in 1740 and Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765. Percy believed that the last two stanzas of the version he published were later additions, but that the details of the story they recounted were original.
Fair Mary of Wallington or Fair Lady of Wallington is Child ballad 91 and number 59 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Child lists at least seven variants of the ballad. The first variant is titled "Fair Mary of Wallington", while another variant is titled "The Bonny Early of Livingston".
"The King's Dochter Lady Jean" is Child ballad No. 52.
Will Stewart and John is Child ballad 107, indexed as such in Francis James Child's 19th century collection of English and Scottish ballads.